The most shattering personal crisis of Tchaikovsky's life--his ill-conceived marriage to a young student in 1877--coincided with one of the greatest periods of his composing career. Over a mere two years, he poured out a stream of masterpieces, culminating in his Fourth Symphony, a 19th-century Russian music drama to rival the great literary dramas of Pushkin and Tolstoy. The young Russian knew he had achieved something extraordinary, calling his symphony "better than anything I've done so far."